Grammar Lesson
by tabby1249
Summary: This is a side story emanates from Chapter 20 of Who Do You Want It to Be?, my in-progress fiction.  Several questions and comments were raised about a particular word choice in that chapter. Hopefully, Erin will explain it well for us all.  Enjoy!


"Erin! Get in here!"

The young girl's head snapped up at the sound of her name being bellowed across the open expanse of the cluttered office—aka: the copywriter's bull pen. The purposeful din of noise lessened as people paused in their work to look up at the latest victim to be hollered into the boss's office.

_'Crap, what have I done now?' _she grumbled inwardly standing up to straighten her skirt and smooth a hand over her hair. She wouldn't dare murmur it aloud because she was all too aware that her all-hearing, all-knowing, pain-in-her-ass boss would hear her and it would cost her her job._ 'If I didn't have a mountain of student loans, I tell him to suck it.'_ sheranted silently on her double time sprint toward his office. She allowed herself a slight giggle at the irony of her last thought.

When she arrived at the door to his office she paused, waiting for the invitation to enter and rubbing absently at the red ink staining her fingers. Until the bellow-summons, she'd been busily editing the copy of the Queen's vows to be used at the upcoming pledging ceremony to Eric Northman. She was looking forward to him being a permanent fixture in the Queen's household. He was hotness personified and seemed a whole lot nicer than Queen Freyda or most of the other Vampires in her Court. Avinash wasn't bad, but he'd scared her the few times she'd caught him staring. His six-eight to her five-five was pretty intimidating.

Franklin Jarrett, Editor, boss and bellower-in-chief sat behind his imposing, too big for his office desk while she cooled her heels in the doorway. From his expression, his face if he'd a pulse should have been about-to-have-a-stroke red. "Enter," he barked.

This was just one of his many little affectations. He liked making the humans on his staff wait for an invitation into his office even when he'd called for them. She supposed it helped him compensate for the inconvenience of Vampires having to wait to be invited into human homes. She sometimes wondered just how much he liked being a Vampire.

"Yes, sir?" she asked deferentially as she remained standing in front of his desk. Presuming to sit before being invited would only incur greater wrath.

"They teach English grammar at O.U., do they not?" Jarrett asked sarcastically without looking up. His disdain for the University of Oklahoma was widely known. It came close to matching his disdain for humans.

"Yes, sir."

"Did you bother to take any of those courses or were you on the M. R. S. Degree Plan?" His sneering sarcasm was as dismissive of her as it was for most of the humans who worked in the Queen's Office of Public Relations and Community Outreach.

"Yes, sir. I have a second major in English." She'd submitted several writing samples with her application and the previous head of PR had complimented her on their quality. She'd felt secure in her abilities until Jarrett had taken over right after she'd been hired. He'd done his best to poke holes in her confidence from the very beginning of his tenure.

Her eyes roved over the degrees hanging behind his desk. He was a University of Texas graduate. Bachelor of Arts in English, class of 1901; Master's Degree in Public Relations, class of 1981. He'd died sometime between the Bachelor's and Master's, but he was such a gung-ho Longhorn, that he headed up the Vampire contingent of the Texas Exes. He was burnt orange through and through. Why he'd come to work for the Queen of Oklahoma Erin would never understand since he thought the sun rose and set over Austin, Texas.

"Alright then," he said finally looking up. "Let's have a little test. The word 'your,'" he pronounced very distinctly, "spelled y-o-u-r. What kind of word is that?"

"A possessive pronoun, sir."

"Use it in a sentence," he demanded.

"Your degrees are from the University of Texas." Erin answered quickly purposely playing to his ego instead of what she'd really wanted to say: _'Your burnt orange coffin is accessorized with steer horns._

"Excellent," Jarrett complimented sarcastically. "Now let's try this: y-o-u-_apostrophe_-r-e. What kind of word is that?

Okay. She got it now. She'd written the presentation speeches for some of the Queen's retinue who would be presenting wedding gifts at the reception this coming Friday night. She'd chosen to use a particular word because she thought it suited the Queen's vanity. Well, that and because MS word kept putting that annoying, squiggly 'you're wrong' line under the original word she'd used. That is what caused her to look into the difference between 'your' and 'you're' when used with a royal's honorific.

"It is a contraction, sir." She decided to make him spell it out since she was pretty secure in her choice of words for the presentation speeches. 'It's a contraction of 'you' and 'are.'" _After all,_ she thought to herself, _'your' and 'you're' are pronounced the same, but there was a world of difference in intended meaning._ Since she believed Queen Freyda to be pretty self-centered, Erin figured the Queen would probably like the implications of her chosen word.

"Alright, then," Jarrett snapped. "Since you do seem to have a rudimentary grasp of the English language, how is it that this copy of the presentation speech addresses our Queen using the contraction of 'you are' as opposed to the possessive pronoun 'your?'

"Well," she began, "my Dad always said—"

"I am not interested in your family oral history—," he barked cutting her off in mid-sentence.

She heaved a sigh and silently begged her temper not to flare on her. She needed this job. "My Dad always said that the words you choose are important and one word in a sentence can change the entire meaning of a sentence. He said to choose words carefully," she finished a little breathlessly. Her words had come out in a rush.

"So you've chosen to ignore your father's sage advice by choosing the wrong modifier in the Queen's honorific?" he asked.

"No, sir. I decided to augment it."

He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers while he regarded her silently. "Go on." he said after a few moments. His tone was slightly less mocking and he'd motioned her into the chair in front of his desk.

She sat down carefully: back straight, knees together, ankles crossed. What she called her interview pose.

"To be honest, MS Word kept trying to correct the word 'your' when I connected it to 'majesty.' I got annoyed, so I decided to look it up. I've found that Word often overlooks errors and sometimes makes suggested changes that are grammatically incorrect. Word told me I should use 'you're, the contraction to modify majesty. At first, I thought it was wrong too, but I wanted to make sure."

Jarrett's impatience was growing as he gave her the 'hurry up' gesture with his hand.

"So, I, uh,_**'googled'**_ it." She winced slightly at the tentative sound of her words. She fully expected him to jump on her for using Google. And he did.

"Was _The Chicago Manual of Style_ or _The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language_ not available to you?" he asked derisively. "Are those well respected and widely used resources not to your liking?"

"No sir! Wait, I mean, yes, sir." _Crap, he already thinks I'm an idiot and I'm helping him prove it._ Her brain was a jumble of how to answer his conflicting questions and not come across as a know-it-all herself. Taking a deep breath, she tried again in her calmest voice.

"Yes, the books were available and no, I like them both and use them very often." She waited to see if she should go on. When he said nothing but continued to stare at her like a bug specimen she forged ahead. "There was nothing definitive in either one when it came to the best word to use in connection with Majesty." That was the best she could do in the death ray of his glare. Both _The Manual of Style _and _The Oxford Dictionary_ were well-thumbed books used by editors, but Google had been faster and Erin never thought she'd have to justify her choice. Silly her.

"So, why did you choose 'you're,' the contraction?"

"Because a couple of the web sources said the contraction of 'you' and 'are' combined with majesty conveys the idea that the person being addressed _**embodies**_ majesty; that they are _in themselves _majestic. You. Are. Majesty. You're majesty…," she trailed off with a small hopeful smile on her face. She was about to wilt under his penetrating stare so she concentrated on the sway of the pendulum on the 'Hook'em Horns' clock behind his desk.

He leaned forward in his chair and rested his forearms on the desk, his hands clasped together. A curious smile lit his face almost as if something really good had occurred to him. There might have been a hint of fang.

"So you see this as a way to _honor_ our Queen at the occasion of her pledging?" he speculated.

_Okay, crunch time. _She thought frantically. _Don't tell him what you really think. He'll kill you. Fire you. Eat you. Not necessarily in that order._

"Yes, sir. You see, _Your Majesty_, the one with the possessive pronoun, just says that the Queen _possesses _majesty. Kind of like a job title. Jobs and job titles can be lost. _You're Majesty_, with the contraction speaks to her inherent characteristic of majesty. You never lose an inherent characteristic." She hoped she didn't sound like she was babbling, but that happened sometimes when she was nervous.

"The source also said, that the use of _'You're Majesty'_ reminds the speaker and those listening that they are in the presence of majesty," Erin pressed. "It's meant to be humbling for the speaker."

"I see," Jarrett said softly. He sat quietly, presumably thinking about the young copywriter's reasoning, but that last bit had apparently sealed the deal for the Editor. He looked strangely satisfied as delicious possibilities for self-aggrandizement danced in his head.

Erin sat in her interview pose waiting nervously for the verdict. Even though the economy had been tough after graduation and jobs had been hard to come by, her parents had cautioned her against working for Vampires. She didn't want to prove them right.

"If the Queen points it out when she reads the copy, I will offer _our_ explanation," he said suddenly. "Be warned," he cautioned self-importantly, "she may require that it be changed." Erin nodded her understanding and noted his inclusive use of _'__our__ explanation—'"_

Jarrett stood abruptly and said, "Thank you for your work, Erin. Back to work, we've got lots to do before the weekend."

Having been dismissed, Erin rose to her feet feeling little dazed, a lot relieved but slightly robbed. She left his office and decided to stop by the reference shelf right outside his door. She was going to check the _Manual of Style_ to see if it actually did say anything about 'your' versus 'you're' when it came to Majesty. It might have been better if she had just gone directly back to her desk.

"You're Majesty," she heard Jarrett intone officiously. "I have the presentation speeches for your approval whenever you're ready. I think you are going to be very pleased with what I have written." His satisfaction and self-congratulation were hard to miss.

She was still standing there fuming when he shouted at her once again. "Erin! Figure out what Mr. Northman's honorific will be once he is pledged to the Queen. I can't find any definitive information."

She shot an aggravated glance in his direction, wadded her hair up into a messy knot with the rubber band from around her wrist and trudged back to her desk. "Google, here I come," she muttered.


End file.
